Hamster is a wonderful company! They are in the business of bringing games to the Switch, and other systems, games that I not only saw in the arcades, but also in the corner of any gas station or some grocery stores. I have such fond memories of a lot of games, and not only is it Hamster, but Johnny Turbo and, to a small degree, Sega, are bringing back the classics at a reasonable price. But here is a list of games I'd love to see.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was a big deal in theaters when it came out in 1982. The story about a boy on earth befriending an alien touched our hearts, so naturally, there had to be a video game. Atari commissioned Howard Scott Warshaw, who created Yars' Revenge and the Raiders Of The Lost Ark Atari game, to make the E.T. game. The result was a glitchy, buggy mess, put together in a month. E.T. was widely regarded as the worst video game ever created, even getting blamed for the Great Video Game Crash of the 1980s, and even drove Warshaw from the video game business entirely.

First off, credit where credit is due. This article could not be possible, or inspired, without the videos of "Guru Larry" Bundy Jr. His "Fact Hunt" series chronicled a lot of things in video games you'd never suspect. This trilogy of hidden programmer rants has more information on the subject than I can put in, and I'm choosing my absolute favorites that have become legend.

It was 1996. I was 19. I was overwhelmed by curiosity. In my hand was the Mercyful Fate album, Into The Unknown. Previously, I had bought a Judas Priest tribute album, which had Mercyful Fate covering "The Ripper," which was a great effort, and it was the first time I'd heard King Diamond's falsetto vocal. Knowing I needed something new as far as music was concerned, at my local Camelot Music (remember that place?), I bought the album. When I brought it home, I was blown away by the music, but a little scared of the lyrics. I was a good little Mormon boy, living in Lakewood, Washington at the time, and was real into heavy metal. All these years, I'd been hearing that metal was the devil's music, and the opening track was called "Lucifer." I was conflicted, torn between the music I loved, and the scary lyrics. I then embraced the music, and adapted.

When I was growing up, the first movie that used video games as a major plot device was The Wizard. You might remember that movie starring Fred Savage, where a major secret was given away in Super Mario 3. As much as it was about video games, the story was actually about two brothers who go on a trip by themselves. The first movie based on a video game wouldn't come until years later, and would start a new trend that continues today! I only mention a handful of them, and these are the games that had a huge impact on me. I'm not listing all of them, because we'd be here all day. So sit back and enjoy.

Atari had it all. Nolan Bushnell's company that put gaming on the map was on top of the world. The Atari VCS, otherwise known as the Atari 2600, was the most popular system for its time. There was nothing Atari could do wrong...until they did two things. The first thing was to create a game based on E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, and licensed Pac-Man for play on the 2600, disappointing players who were waiting for this legendary title, and only got the prototype that was made instead. All of this, and other events, led to the great video game crash of the 1980s. Now, I never knew about the crash until I read about it some years back. There were still arcades, there were still arcade games tucked in gas station and grocery store corners, and video games were still being made and sold. But unknown to me at the time, video games were almost gone in America. Until Nintendo stepped in to revive the North American video game industry. Nintendo, a Japanese company with established hits like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and Punch Out, wanted to make their presence known in America, but they had an uphill climb.